The advanced energy industry is ubiquitous, often hiding in plain sight. But when you shine a spotlight on it, the numbers are jaw-dropping.

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Trish Starkey is a Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council board member.

Dolly Parton. Music Row. Memphis barbecue. Tennessee is known around the world for a lot of things, but an emerging industry is putting the state on the map for new economic opportunity: advanced energy.

The advanced energy industry is ubiquitous, often hiding in plain sight. But when you shine a spotlight on it, the numbers are jaw-dropping. Advanced energy represents a $1.4 trillion global market.

To put that figure in perspective, that’s nearly twice the size of the global airline industry.

In Tennessee, the advanced energy industry is outpacing even the overall state economy in employment growth.

Advanced energy is where we will find economic opportunity

That’s right. Advanced energy contributes $39.7 billion to state gross domestic product. It employs nearly 360,000 Tennesseans, up more than 10 percent since 2013, in jobs that pay average wages more than $15,000 higher than the state average.

Tennessee’s advanced energy economy supports over 18,100 business establishments in all 95 counties, contributing approximately $1.1 billion in state and local sales tax revenue.

This 2018 data – released by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council, of which my employer Schneider Electric is a member, and analyzed by the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy – reveals that if we’re looking for economic opportunity, advanced energy is where we’ll find it.

So what is advanced energy exactly?

Any technology that makes energy or transportation cleaner, safer, more secure or more efficient. That’s the latest nuclear, wind, and solar technologies, to be sure, but it’s much broader than that: microgrids, storage, more efficient industrial processes, high performance buildings, combined heat and power, electric and hybrid cars, lightweight composites for the automotive industry and more are included.

The key to solving the global energy dilemma can be found in Tennessee

As an energy enthusiast who works with over 900 colleagues at Schneider Electric’s Nashville HUB, I see the fruits of advanced energy firsthand every day. Schneider’s Nashville HUB is a brand new, 158,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility opened last year in Franklin, that consolidates the corporation’s southeast operations under one roof.

The campus is built with advanced EcoStruxure framework to achieve new levels of efficiency, sustainability and energy savings. Every piece from the HVAC and power systems, to data centers, to charging docks for electric vehicles, is built to optimize energy use and efficiency. The hub is home to experts in engineering and research and development working to create new innovations in advanced energy.

Leveraged together, advanced energy technologies like these hold the key to solving the global energy dilemma.

At Schneider, we have a saying: Life is on when energy is on. And keeping the energy flowing – and life running – is an increasingly complex task. Just as industrialization and urbanization are spawning unprecedented innovation and technology dependence, Earth’s changing climate is rapidly transforming our environment and resources. This predicament necessitates a new, advanced approach to energy.

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